Good morning to all,
I ordered and received a complete set of sway links from Duane on Friday, straight forward install on Sat. They are a nice beefy set of links, well made with nice end link bearings. They came with the boots pre-installed and greased with Moly-B grease, can be a little messy to handle, but super grease I use it on Naval Aircraft. With the boots installed, it was a little tricky getting the bolts torqued without damaging the boots. So take your time..... In my case I have a 07 MCS, the lower link bolt was a little difficult getting a wrench on the end link side to hold it so I could remove the retaining nut, I found a pair of needle nose vise did a nice job holding it without damaging the bolts, if you wanted to keep them for any reason...mine went into the metal recycle bin.
Over all please without the product Duane provide at a super price compaired to the others out on the market and I think a they better.
Please do Duane a favor, provide him feedback as you get some wear on your links along with the conditions (weather, tracking etc.) they are being operated in.
Thank you... Chuck

 

Can someone who has purchased these please let me know if the bushing(s) on the heim joints are a single sleeve or actual heim spacers? From the ebay pics they seem to be a single sleeve which would allow the heim to slide along the sleeve and cause serious noise.

 

Rod ends are fairly basic suspension components.

A few issues that can cause a rod end (heim joint) to be noisy:

- The high mis-alignment spacer is does not have enough clearance to avoid making contact with the rod end when it is rotated along the axis of the tube. Easy way to tell is to put a bolt through the rod end and twist the tube and if the space makes contact with the rod end its a poorly design high mis-alignment spacer.

-The other would be metal to metal rod ends. There are several types of rod ends on the market. The quietest have a teflon lining. The only issue is they teflon lining will wear out and things will get noisy once again.

A good place to get parts to make your own rod ends or end links is http://www.speedwaymotors.com/AFCO-S...nch,39945.html Same as what you see on ebay.

I've used the AFCO stuff in my EVO rally car and they have put up with serious abuse.

 

What looks like a spacer is part of the joint itself, it doesn't slide as if it were a tube through the bushing. It is centered permanently, so it isn't like added spacers either. All one part. You can not take the extensions off, they don't move.

 

What he said... They're solid. I guess press-fit on a very large hydraulic press? Not sure. Mine are still quiet after a bit of winter.

 

I also wonder about noise on these. They don't seem any worse in construction than Helix's.

 

Agree, they look like they are part of the joint which makes it a solid bearing surface. I've only had mine about 3 weeks and the same weekend I installed them I went out and did some heavy tracking with no porblems or noise. After talking to Duane, he would like us to provide him with any pro's or con's about is links. He is an engineer by trade and want input from us to make his product even better. Thanks

 

Hey Donald,
This thread has been very helpful for me. People really seem to like your stuff. I need some rear, lower control arms for my '04 MCS. I saw this item on your ebay store, but it does not specify upper vs lower.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Adjustable-R...item2c5ffeed72

Can you let me know if this item is for upper or lower rear control arm? Greatly appreciated man. Hope to order soon! Got other parts on the way and would like to get it all done while she's in the air.

Thanks!

 

The upper and rear control arms are the same

 

What he said. Use whichever. I replaced only my lowers. They're still super-awesome-o. Highly recommended.

 

Perhaps, but a quick word on ours: we use the most expensive and durable bearings available (from FK), and we supply weather proof boots over the bearings, packed in lubricant. This is key. Spherical bearings are made of hardened steel, the races of which are susceptible to wear and corrosion. Corrosion causes slop in the races and subsequently they clatter or sometimes sieze. Some spherical bearings are of such bad quality that there is slop in them from new, and they will always clatter. The heavier poly-bushing-and-turnbuckle style control arms unfortunately do not offer a trouble free solution: the various metals used in the turnbuckle quickly shed their coating and sieze in place, and the poly can fail.

No moving suspension piece will last forever, but there's no question in my mind that ours will last longer than anything out there. We have multiple sets of these on race cars, which see tremendous punishment--I always say that a racing mile is like a dog year (worth about 7 regular miles).

 

Well said.

Duane's arms are quite similar. I have no idea what company he buys his bearings from, but I can tell you that are extremely high quality units (I can tell, engineering background). They come with neoprene boots, which are also packed with really sticky moly grease.

As opposed to Alta's PSRS. What cheap POS bearings. Mine clattered after about 5000 miles. Not to mention the fact that everyone has to weld them to the control arms. lol @ grub-screws.

 

I know this is an older thread but I just got these as well so I thought I would add my experience as well.

IF your car is lowered let him know ahead of time. I am running m7 springs and I could only get the camber set to -1 degree. The bars are fully adjusted. He offers a shorter bar if you need it but I found out after I had them installed and the car aligned. He offered to send me new tubes as an exchange but I didn't have the money to have the work redone.

I also have noise from one of them. Just the passenger side. It was making noise since it was first installed. I can only hear it when I am going and the radio is off. BUT it is noticeable.

Don't get me wrong I like them a LOT and wouldn't have a problem using them again BUT I wanted to just let people know about what I have experienced. The better informed you are the better off you are

 

Agreed very nice product, sent me 2 sets of hardware and still ~$30 cheaper than any other type I could find.

 

I will say that one of my end links got some noise in it after a few eeeks of use. When I checked it out it was simply the jam nut has loosened a little and the part with the bearing was making a little noise. I tightened it back up and have not had any issues over a year later.

I plan on getting a set of lower control arms and seeing if he will sell the boots for the end links. I believe they are included now but when I got mine they were not.

 

@Hunter99 The noise HAS cleared up at this point. I think it was just trying to make its self happy where it was.
Again I love these bars and i know a guy or two who will be buying a set from him shortly.
I just with I would have known about them NOT being shorter without special ordering them.